Would it be possible to port Vs Duck Hunt to Nes?

[gamemaster14]

On Retrousb.com they sell a Vs Super Mario Bros cartridge for the nes. What I was wondering, is, Would it be possible to Port Vs Duck Hunt to the nes as well since I heard it has many differences compared to the nes version.

[gorfcadet]

They actually sold that for a time. I wish I had ordered it before he quit making it. Vs Castlevania as well.

[Crazy Climber]

If you go to the discontinued section you can see all the vs games he made. I believe it was...

Super mario

Duck hunt

Excitebike

Hogans alley

Castlevania

[Andromeda Stardust]

Yup. Porting VS Duck Hunt was not easy because the Arcade Zapper works differently to the NES counterpart. It is a non-trivial process porting the games. I attempted to dump the PRG ROM from VS DuckHunt as NROM. The game worked surprizingly on the Powerpak, albeit with scrambled graphics and no DIP switch support. If I remember correctly, FCEU emulated the ROM with all the DIP switches off, while Powerpak emulated them with all DIP switches on.

 

I tried patching the CHR from the Arcade ROM into the CopyNES dump and assigning it the VS mapper, but I still got scrambled graphics and it didn't work right. So the exact details of the RetroUSB mapper remains unknown. There was a guy working to port many of the VS Unisystem games to MMC1, but he was unable to get zapper emulation correct. Many of his MMC1 ports run on Powerpak or repro board; some contain a submenu for selecting DIP switches and saving the high score to SRAM.

 

In hindsight, I probably should have sent him my RetroUSB VS DuckHunt PRG/NROM dump. He may have been able to get the zapper working with the RetroUSB modifications. He had a website somewhere with a set of .ips patches for the MMC1 hacks, and although he requested people not make repros for sale (personal use is okay I think), I'm sure there are people who would make one for you. I forget the guy's online handle or the url if it still exists.

 

Also the Super Mario Bros Lost Levels repro which is also discontinued, had a special level select code added in by Brian himself, but I haven't seen this exact hack available at any of the repro sites. Honestly with the game's difficulty, the level select code adds tons of replay value. My attempts at dumping this repro were unsuccessful. I believe RetroUSB used custom mappers at times simply to thwart people from dumping and emulating his games.

 

Mods, if any of this borderlines on forum rules, feel free to edit it. I did not provide any links to ROMs or game dumps so I think I'm okay.

[Andromeda Stardust]

VS Castlevania is identical to NES Castlevania except enemies deal 4 hits damage in Normal mode, 8 hits in hard mode. I don't think you can continue either. There may be other differences but I haven't gotten far enough to find any. Otherwise it's pretty much the same game. Just frustratingly hard.

All the other VS titles I've played had additions to the game to make it more interesting.

 

Excite Bike combines the A and B games without and with racers. The A is the qualifier and the B is the actual race. There's an intermission where you stunt jump obstacles between races 3&4 and 6&7. Yes, there's seven tracks instead of five like the home version but I've never seen tracks 6&7. I believe you can also get a golden racer with unlimited turbo if you eliminate 5 other racers.

VS hogan's Alley has a training mode with the three targets before it goes to the field. I believe the shooting cans game is also included as a bonus round.

VS Duck Hunt cycles between Ducks and Clay shoot, with a bonus round every four stages where you can "shoot" the dog. Instead of a quota every round, you get 3 or 5 misses with a chance to earn an extra miss. Also if you set the DIP switches to Normal or Extreme, you get to shoot 3 ducks/skeet simultaneously in rounds 5-6 and 11-12, with only 3 bullets, so iif you waste a single bullet, it counts as a miss. I've maybe gotten to round 13 once or twice where the ducks get stupid fast. Easy mode is roughly the same speed as the NES game with the modes interleaved. No stages have 3 ducks/skeet in Easy.

VS Mario is Super Mario Brothers with just enough edits to toy with people. 1Ups replaced with powerups and other shenanigans. Some worlds are borrowed from Lost Levels and others are totally unique to the game. World 4 vine warp only leads to World 6. World 6 separates the men from the boys as I believe in 6-3 you have to make a blind leap off a Koopas back, Lost Levels style. This is where most players die.

 

I've also played a couple other VS games through conversions/emulation. VS Pinball has deeper gameplay mechanics than it's NES counterpart, and arcade Ice Climbers is also different. VS Tetris is a strait up port of the Tengen version of the game.

Edited February 22, 2015 by stardust4ever

[gamemaster14]

They actually sold that for a time. I wish I had ordered it before he quit making it. Vs Castlevania as well.

Any clue where I could purchase such a cartridge these days, Duck Hunt is still one of my favorite Light Gun games of all time and I couldn't see myself getting a VS System.

[gorfcadet]

Not sure currently. I want a VS Duck Hunt as well. He discontinued it recently. I held off so I could get this year's 8-bit X-Mas game.

[Crazy Climber]

Any clue where I could purchase such a cartridge these days, Duck Hunt is still one of my favorite Light Gun games of all time and I couldn't see myself getting a VS System.

With the way NA is with out of print retrousb stuff I am NOT kidding that it will probably run you $100-$150++

I saw their reproduction of SM2j sell for $250 on the forums. There is no difference in their repro and one you can have someone make for $30 other than the Retrousb logo on it, yes, out of print retrousb carts are highly collectable...